The church was completed on July 30, 2000, and was a gift from Norway to Iceland in connection with the millennial anniversary of the
conversion of Iceland to Christianity by
Olav Tryggvason in the year 1000. Developing from a suggestion by the Icelandic government, the Norwegian state presented Iceland with a replica of the
Haltdalen Stave Church (
Haltdalen stavkirke), originally from around the 1170s. The first church known on Iceland was a
post church and not a
stave church. The replica was erected by the harbour of Vestmannaeyjabær in the
Vestmannaeyjar, in an area formed by the lava of the 1973 eruption of Eldfell. The replica was undertaken by the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research as a three-year research and reconstruction project from 1998 to 2000 under the leadership of professor Elisabeth Seip, Head of Research at the
Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research. The National
Church of Norway also gave an altar piece. It is replica of the
St Olav frontal, one of the finest surviving medieval Norwegian works of art, undertaken under the leadership of Terje Nordsted. The original is at
Nidaros Cathedral but is said (without any substantial supporting evidence) once to have been situated in the Haltdalen stave church. == References ==